Honda Amaze : Official Review

This is a discussion on Honda Amaze : Official Review within Official New Car Reviews, part of the Team-BHP Reviews category; Originally Posted by volkman10
To some extent Amaze seem to be cannibalizing the City. March sales figures of City is ...

i20 Sedan will not be coming to India. This has been discussed before.
i20 sedan can never be sub 4m, and if its not then there will be hardly any difference between Verna and i20 sedan price diff. Plus you mention that Verna will get cannibalized. Instead Hyundai can bring a entry trim of Verna at even cheaper price point if it sees any dip in sales of Verna(At present things are pretty good for verna isnt it ?)

One thing that really sticks out is the snooty behavior of the executives. We were promptly attended by the receptionist who promised to give us a TD. And then we were left to our own devices. There were only 2 other sets of prospective customers. I had to ask them thrice before they nodded their heads for a TD.

Had a very similar experience at Peninsular Honda, Marad, Kochi.

Case 1 ( SMS Spamming )

I registered for the test drive from Honda's website. Once every 2-3 days, I receive a price list from one of the Honda executives. After waiting almost 2 weeks for a test drive, I got irritated and replied to these sms asking them not to spam me again, and to let me know only if a test drive car comes. Spamming stopped after that. But, not even a reply with regards to test drive car.

My friend Vinu got a call from Honda saying that the test drive vehicle has come and he can come and do a test drive. He called me along with him, and I too went. His father also accompanied us, because Vinu and his father shares all their vehicles.

Vinu started the test drive. When he tried to take the vehicle in to a side road, bang came the first shock.

"Sir, we are permitted to allow customers to drive only on the highway"

Now, Vinu tried driving straight to test out the in gear acceleration capabilities on each gear.

2nd shock - "Sir, Test drive is permitted only for 3 kms"

Fed up with the attitude, Vinu drove back and on reaching the dealership, he mentioned that now his father and I also need to try it out.

3rd shock - "Sir, Test drive is only permitted for one person."

Vinu was really fed up by now and told that me ( Amal ) and him was from different families, and if they want, he can show ration card or voter's id. Ofcourse, he told it sarcastically because he was really fed up by now.

The person told, he will have to take another slip for test drive, but there are a lot of people who are in the queue. I asked him, how many are in the queue and what's the ETA?

He mentioned he is not sure about the ETA since there are a lot many people in the queue. I repeated - "How many". ( I asked this question because I saw only one person on the showroom )

4th Shock - "Sir, one person and then you two"

We told, we are ready to wait for that one person! He said ok, and told that he'll let you know. Now, Vinu's father was a senior citizen and they didn't even show the courtesy to ask him to wait inside. He was left to wait in the sun on a hot summer day.

After waiting for 30 minutes, and seeing the car sitting idle on the dealership parking for more than 20 minutes, we asked them for an ETA. They communicated the 5th shock - "Sir, there are a lot of people in the queue."

Unless we are blind or something, we did not see a single person waiting for the test drive. The person who was already waiting for the test drive has already done it by now. We asked them 'who' is waiting and they told many had booked the test drive. That was the most funny answer. They won't give a test drive to a person in their dealership because someone from somewhere had booked the test drive even though they did not show any sign of showing up.

Anyway, fed up with their pathetic customer service, we told, is there a way we can give a feedback regarding our sales experience ?

6th shock - "Sorry sir, we have such processes only after you buy a car."

We would not have been so irritated, if it was one person, who did this kind of stupidity to one of their potential customer. We interacted with 3 different persons at different levels and each one of them were either arrogant or clueless.

Since, Vinu owns a Honda City and takes his car to the same service center for service, he called all service engineers whom he knew and complained about the incident. One of them showed the courtesy to forward the complaint to sales. Sales head called Vinu and apologized for the behavior. He told that he will check it up with his staff and call back. It's been 1 week and there is no call back after that.

PS: I wouldn't have posted this, had the sales lead called us again, and offered a test drive at his home. But, this simply did not happen and we understood that it's not just about 1 or 2 employee misbehaving, but there's something seriously wrong with the culture followed by the dealership people.

Such dealerships doesn't deserve business. If I ever buy a Honda, I would never ever do that from Peninsular Honda, Marad, Cochin even if that means travelling another 100 kms. And I dearly hope, dealerships like these don't bring down the sales of the Amazing 'Amaze'. They lost a potential customer in Vinu who was seriously thinking of booking an Amaze. I'm sure they would have lost many others as well with this kind of an attitude.

@amalji, ^^^ that's a bad experience. I could have experienced the same, had I dared to ask for Test Drive the car in a NCR dealership. To the top of this the dealership sales guy did not even care to take my contact details so that I can be reached at a later stage.

I know, for few months they will be at the top because of unprecedented demand, but, still number 2 in sales in the segment, simply because Honda does not have the requisite production capacity. On an even paying field (mass market), they need to prove themselves in India, & not act like the Europeans, lest Indians would gladly embrace the Europeans or other Japs &/or even Korean products (they need to watch out, as even Hyundai has planned an under 4m sedan).

Would also request Honda to update via the moderators on the course of action taken against them.

I doubt that, boorish behaviour is part of the Honda experience, any trouble with your car has to do with your driving or maintenance schedule, sales folks are surprised that you care about fuel economy when you are "buying a premium brand like Honda".

This attitude means that Maruti will still be selling the Dzire, Honda showrooms don't have the resources and more importantly, manners to deal with large volumes.

Just doing back of the envelope calculations wrt petrol vs diesel amaze. As per current prices of both the fuels, it may take 60000 Km to break even and recover one lakh premium over petrol amaze. I have used arai figures on fuel efficiency. Need to book one for my father. His annual running is around 15000 Km. so it may take four years to recover extra money before reaping benefit of a Diesel engine. Honda has been good with petrol, hence a little more leaning towards petrol.

You are right in your calculation. But you are missing an important point. The resale value of your car will also be higher than the petrol variant as the diesel variant's initial cost is higher. So basically the 1 lakh premium you pay over the petrol gets somewhat negated as you will get majority of it back when u sell the car. You should look at the cost per km more than this price difference

I doubt that, boorish behaviour is part of the Honda experience, any trouble with your car has to do with your driving or maintenance schedule, sales folks are surprised that you care about fuel economy when you are "buying a premium brand like Honda".

This attitude means that Maruti will still be selling the Dzire, Honda showrooms don't have the resources and more importantly, manners to deal with large volumes.

Hi guys, I had heard of such instances of rude behaviour of Honda staff at dealerships. While I had a very good experience at the Honda dealership when I went to TD the Amaze on the launch day, the salesman is still to get back to me with the estimate for the model I had chosen. I was planning to procure the Amaze through my company and wanted a detailed estimate. I had even called up the salesman twice after that day and only got promises that he would mail it to me, nothing received till date! This was at Apex Honda in Chembur, Mumbai. Compared to this, the Hyundai showroom salesperson still calls me even though I had just casually enquired about the i20!

Honda back to their arrogant self. These guys never learn. The only time the dealerships were courteous was when none of the vehicles were selling and they were slashing prices of every model in the showroom.

When I bought my City 2 years ago (before price cut), their sales were down and I had a fantastic experience. But, when I bought my CBR, my experience was so bad that I almost walked out of the deal.

Honda needs to get its act straight. The showroom people were only well behaved for the periods when the sales were down. Mostly around the time when city corporate edition was launched.

3 years back me and my friend visited Ring Road Honda as he was interested in getting an Accord. To our amuse no one even cared to show us the car let alone TD . We sat inside the car for 5 minutes, looked around and left. No one bothered to ask for contact info. He bought the bmw 320 within 15 days. Had to extend his budget and be tight for a while , but said its better than buying from such shoddy dealerships.

He really liked the accord and would have definitely bought it not for the poor experience.

Today went to ring road honda for a test drive, the attitude of the sales man there put me off. First of all, while doing the drive, we asked to extend it a little, to which he replied that this is the only route and we can't extend it or change the route.

Okay, then I asked him the difference between S and E variant, I didn't got the satisfactory answer. He was not at all interested in explaining.

Okay after the test drive, we asked him for his card, he said he don't have any, so he can't give. All we got was his number on a paper after a bit or argument.

Looks like the success of amaze is getting on the Honda, they have started taking customers for granted.

Even when I asked him what is the waiting period, I didn't got any answer, all he said was it depends on color and I did mentioned white to him but I never got the reply.

But the car is good, engine is awesome, the refinement and drivability is very much sunny like, but the cost cutting is pretty much evident at places, AC was good so was space, but the shoulder room and head room at rear is not good enough, 3 people at back was tight fit, and I am 5 11 and my head was just about to touch the roof.

But overall at, 6.8l for a diesel sedan with Abs, It's justified. Had the Dzire came with abs optional on Vdi, I would have bought the dzire over amaze.

Amazing refinement, great pick up, handling and ride. It was a superb driving experience and I have decided to go for an Amaze Automatic.

Anyone in NCR can recommend a decent dealer in South Delhi or Gurgaon who can make a timely delivery and not pass on a demo or a showroom demo car? I say this because I have a feeling that the dealer I spoke to in Saket wants to push the showroom car on to me.

If someone has bought a Honda recently with no complaints against the dealer and is happy with the experience please PM me, I will be grateful.

One thing is sure, with the launch of Amaze, the ambiance of Honda dealerships has been changed. Similarly the attitude of dealership staffs. Now we should wait and see the JD Power Initial Quality Study (IQS) and Sales Satisfaction Index (SSI). Normally Honda ranks in first three so would like to see the new rankings.